A young girl pokes through an honour guard of soldiers during the Olympic torch parade on Armed Forces Day. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Olympic medal Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images Europe

Does anything say "the magic of sport" quite like being patted down by a member of the British army at an Olympic Park checkpoint? As someone who has already been required to submit to the authoritarian sweeps of a camouflage uniformed soldier, I can assure you that it really is the last word in athletic idealism.

To visit the Olympic Park, even at this early stage, is to be confronted by a mind-boggling number of British soldiers, either manning the entrances, patrolling the borders, or being bussed around to combat hotspots unknown. It's what you'd call a great "look".

Of course, you may already be familiar with the nutso statistic that more British troops have been deployed for the Olympics than are serving in Afghanistan.

And on the one hand, this feels hugely positive: it looks as if we have far more chance of subjugating sports fans than we do Johnny Taliban.

Indeed, it will surely be some comfort to any military personnel bleeding out after a Helmand ambush to know that they might have sacrificed their backup to a nobler cause – like stopping people bringing off-brand water bottles anywhere near the velodrome. And medalwise, the Olympics shouldn't just be about gold, silver and bronze. Let's hope the confiscation of unauthorised marketing material guarantees the combatant at least a Military Cross.

On the other hand, we now appear to be actively styling our Games to resemble a futuristic dystopia.

I know what you're thinking: this lunacy won't last. And I concede I thought the same, assuming the military would be in situ just for the build-up, only to withdraw before the public started arriving, replaced by Adidas-kitted operatives whose previous tours have been in places like the All England Club as opposed to Basra.

Staggeringly, though, Locog confirms that the army will remain for the duration of the Games, meaning that all visitors' first experience of the Olympic Park will be passing through military checkpoints. Furthermore, the organisers state that many unspecified people are "reassured" by the massive military presence. This seems the most questionable of claims.

The British people have historically recoiled from the use of the army in civilian situations, which is why it happens with such studied rarity. Standout instances would include Churchill sending in the troops during the Tonypandy riots – an incident best summarised as This Was Not His Finest Hour – and David Blunkett deploying tanks to Heathrow, an irrational piece of theatre that failed to rally support for the then imminent attack on Iraq.

And now this. Quite an achievement, considering that even the masterminds of the Beijing Olympics resisted the PR triumph of stationing the People's Liberation Army at the gateway to their Games. But then, which of us wants to come across as being as laissez-faire as the Chinese?

Olympic medal Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images Europe

And so to the first in a series of Inspirational Olympic Vignettes. We lay our scene at Westfield Stratford City, the Temple of Mammon through which all Olympic visitors disgorged from Stratford tube station are required to pass before proceeding to the military checkpoints.

Here, on Thursday morning, a party of primary school children were amassed before a sponsor's logo, and were being addressed by a fearsome woman demanding they identify it.

"BMW," the children chorused back, somewhat unenthusiastically. "And do you know," she thundered educationally, "that BMW have paid nearly a hundred million pounds to sponsor the Olympics?"

A pause, in which the children appeared unsure of how to react.

"That is a lot of money!" explained their … tour guide? Teacher?

Hard to say. Let's just salute the Games for improving the lives of children in London's poorest boroughs, and move on.